You know how I feel 80% of the time? “Damn, the world sucks.” That’s my refrain right now. Damn, the world sucks.

It’s kind of on my mind all the time. It’s like a stain and I keep holding it up in people’s faces whenever I can. “Why don’t you want children?” my mom asks. “Damn,” I tell her, pointing around. “The world sucks.” Someone laughs when I tell them I don’t own a car and I only take the bus. “Why would you do that?” they ask. I point at their car, I point at a gas station, I point at the fucking hot as eighty degree sun in fucking late ass November. “Damn, the world sucks,” I tell them. People get killed en mass every day. Damn, the world sucks. People have guns. Damn, the world sucks. People hate gay people and black people and all people. Damn, the world sucks.

It makes me so mad and helpless and as if we’re all doomed. (We are.) I hate everything. I feel like I felt when reading Between The World World And Me: we are fucked and I hate everyone and everything and there is no way out. Damn, the world sucks.

I never thought I would have any allies in this sourness. Some people agree with some specific things—climate change, police brutality, gun control, etc.—but no one feels as weighted down by all this bullshit that is going on. This is why it’s surprising that my ally is a dude that would probably hate me: Pope Francis.

Cool Pope recently took the words out of my mouth during a mass this past weekend: the world sucks. “It’s all a charade,” he explained of the world, specifically in relationship to celebrating Christmas in 2015. “The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war.” Boy, you real. Boy, you listening to me. Boy, I feel you. Damn, the world sucks—and you recognize that and you are telling people all about that, even though they aren’t listening and will not care. You see the writing on the wall like me, you are the optimistic pessimist, you are in the same sinking ship as me. Pope, we could chill. We could bro out in the darkness, as the book closes on humans.

It’s exhausting telling people that shit sucks. And when one of the most respected persons in the world is saying shit sucks and it’s all a joke? Damn. It’s not hyperbolic either. The facts are all there but no one seems to care. We (Americans.) would rather go on hating each other and allowing people (Terrorists.) to take advantage of our hate and greed and gun craziness and lack of community and insecurities and fucking antiquated, stupid ass prejudices. Can we heal the world if we can’t heal ourselves? Damn, the world sucks.

But, hey, Cool Pope sees what I mean. We could chill and smoke a blunt as we both break into sweats as the sun sets on us all. What do you think, Papa? “Damn, the world sucks,” he says in Italian. I feel you, deity daddy.